"He'll make it here someday. Jim's coming too. They're all coming one of these days."
"Are you going to look for anybody's name besides me daddy's?"
"Yeah."
"Those guys I told you about, the ones that died all around me that day. And that guy I was going to look up—he might be here. I don't know if he made it out or not."
Sam gets a flash of Emmett's suffering, his grieving all these years. He has been grieving for fourteen years. In this dazzling sunlight, his pimples don't show. A jet plane flies overhead, close to the earth. Its wings are angled back, like a bird's.
1. So what did you think of the book?
2. What was your reaction to the resolution? If Sam's trip is an odyssey of sorts, what did she learn from it, and particularly her moment at the wall?
3. "'Fuck. You can't learn from the past. The main thing you learn from history is that you can't learn from history,'" Emmett says (226). Is this the message of the novel? If yes, what does this mean—how does this act as a resolution for Sam's journey through the book? If not, what then is the message of the book—what is it about?
Finally, here is the trailer for the 1989 film starring Bruce Willis as Emmett and British actor Emily Lloyd as Sam. It was a commercial flop.
See you tomorrow.
1. I thought In Country was very different from the other texts we read because its distance from war itself made it more difficult to draw meaning about war from the text; it was a war story, but not a story about war. That contradiction made it more difficult to draw conclusions from the book than for BOTFOJ, for example. Overall, I liked that Sam was the “protagonist” in the story rather than one of the vets because it gives a different perspective, but it also makes the broader conclusions more difficult to “pick out.”
ReplyDelete2. I liked the resolution because it ended with Emmett; while the story focuses mostly on the life of Sam, I think that Emmett is a more dynamic character because he goes from the hippie flying the VC flag to the broken, obsessive “weirdo” and finally to the confident leader in the last trip. Emmett’s transition “as if he saw the bird he had been looking for” gives the reader hope in the end that, while Sam will never know everything about Emmett, he at least has found some relief in the monument; I interpreted the final moment to mean that Emmett saw that his buddy’s name(s) were not on the wall, so they made it out.
3. No, Sam is only one person who refuses to learn from history in the novel; her fascination with Vietnam does not correlate to the entirety of the human race for the complete expanse of time; that is quite the stretch. Mason’s message is that we are not as different as we make each other out to be. The members of Hopewell saw Emmett as “other” when he flew the VC flag and refused to get a job, but in the end, Mason shows us that Emmett is just like the rest of us. In the final image of the book, Emmett shows his joy that his buddy made it out of the war: he is just as human as Sam, Anita, Irene, and Dwane.
1. In Country provided me with a more accessible perspective of war. Watching Saving Private Ryan and The Deer Hunter showed me what a true war story is, but I do not feel like I was able to connect with those characters in the same way I connected with Sam. Because Sam is young and has the same mentality that most teenagers have, I was able to recognise her in people like myself and other teens I know. Although what the characters in the movies and Kovic did in war were human, they seemed so distant from my reality, so I struggled putting myself in their shoes. Mason’s writing helped me understand the motives of people like Emmet, Sam, and even Dwayne by depicting the full story and showing how powerful human relationships are.
ReplyDelete2. I was proud of how much Sam had changed but also surprised at how she seemed to repeat the same cycles of ignorance that made us annoyed at her in the beginning. Almost at the end of the book, at the memorial, she says “she imagines herself a turned soldier, twenty four hours away from the steamy jungle”(237). Her mentality seems to be the same as when she ran away to the pond and thinks she can pretend to be a soldier and understand war. Shortly after, Sam recognises her ignorance in a girl at the memorial who doesn’t understand the names, “but she realises that she doesn’t know either. She is just beginning to understand. And she will never really know what happened to all these men in the war”(240). Sam seems to find peace in not knowing which she struggled with previously. She is accepting that she is not and will never be an expert in war because she can never fully understand Emmet, Dwayne, and Tom’s experience.
3. I do believe this line gets at the main message of the book in two ways. First, as a teenager who has to care for her uncle, Sam is in a tough situation making her somewhat lost and vulnerable. Because of this she seems to look for her identity in the past, which explains her obsession with war and her father‘s role in it. Emmet tells her that she can’t find the answers she is looking for to piece together her life in the past because the logical answers she is looking for to explain the war or her family do not exist. Secondly, Emmet explains that she needs to be comfortable with not understanding the war and people’s motives. She can’t use her moral compass to judge other people’s actions.
I don’t know how I feel about the book yet because I just finished reading it and have not had enough time to reflect yet. I think I like it. It was not a difficult read, so I could focus more on what the author was saying, unlike the Deer Hunter experience where everything was so detailed, it was hard to read any given theme/aspect of the film in any amount of time less than an hour. I find it a little frustrating to read coming of age novels that are also about something completely different (I do not know yet if the themes are entwined) because I feel that some themes of the novel may be potentially overshadowed by the fact that Sam is coming of age. For example, with the theme of ignorance, it is confusing when trying to decide if Bobbie Ann Mason is commenting specifically on the ignorance of kids or of a populace or both. In general, I think I like this book, although maybe not enjoyed it because some characters’ lenses are a little frustrating to see this novel’s world through (specifically, Sam *cough cough.*)
ReplyDeleteI think I actually really like the end of this book (I may change my opinion tomorrow.) The last image where Emmett’s face “bursts into a smile like flames” makes my heart swell. This scene and the wall in general reminds me of childhood and everything that is associated with it: innocence, outward expression of emotion, friendship, and so many other feelings that I don’t necessarily know how to put on paper. I can see Emmett reconnecting with people through that wall, which is an image I did not expect to see in this novel (or in general.) I had previously associated the wall with awe and sorrow. I appreciate when books pleasantly surprise me with something I have never seen before.
I think the main thing we can learn from history is that history repeats itself but humans will never catch on to the cycle. (It is like an Alice-In-Wonderlandlike confusion that makes perfect sense but no sense whatsoever at the same time.) I do not yet know if I believe this to be the message of the story. I think the message may be linked to the lines on the last page, “She touches her own name. How odd it feels, as though all the names in America have been used to decorate the wall.” I don’t know if this line is meant to imply loss, friendship, cohesiveness, or something that has not even crossed my mind yet. I will have to sleep on it.
1. In Country was an interesting book. While it was very different from the other texts we have studied, it shared many similarities to them, too. The most striking similarity for me was between Ron Kovic and Emmett, they seem to have shared similar experiences in the war, and share feelings about the war years after returning home. Personally, I did not like Sam as a character. I thought she was annoyingly childish, and that paired with her belief that she knows more than those around her irritated me greatly.
ReplyDelete2. Part two of the book ends right before part one begins, and part three picks up where part one leaves off. While I understand that Bobbie Ann Mason was trying to pull the reader in by starting in the middle of the story, then explaining how we got there, and finally resolving the story, the shifts in time, especially the shift into the resolution, seemed a bit sudden and forced, as it was presented a whole book after what had chronologically happened directly before. This led to the resolution feeling forced, and slightly insincere. I may feel that way because I have never been in a position like Sam’s, and am having a hard time empathizing with her, but do not like how the story doesn’t resolve Sam and Emmett’s relationship, or really explain Mamaw’s presence.
3. I think this is the intended message of the novel, though I do not agree with it. Throughout the novel, Sam tries to learn the history of the war and the history of her father. Among all of the people telling her that she doesn’t want to hear the true history, she learns certain truths, from her father’s diary or from stories, like the one about the ears. Sam cannot learn from these truths, she actually refuses to for a while, proving Emmett’s point. (I do not believe that Emmett’s point is true. I may be as childish as Sam, but I think that it is possible to learn from history.)
1. I enjoyed reading this book and I also think it was a good book to read relative to the other pieces we have read or watched so far this semester because it seemed like those other works more focused on what war and the aftermath of war looks like from a veteran's or soldier's perspective whereas this book was almost a little more relatable to read. It very explicitly illustrated the struggles and PTSD that most veterans face coming home from war but in a way that seemed more realistic than what the Deer Hunter portrayed. Also, it outlined the curiosity of those of us who have not been to war but want to more about it and why it has the effects on veterans that it does. Although compared to the other movies we have watched and books we have read it at first doesn't seem like a lot really happened or changed throughout the book, I feel like you could also argue that this is the most dramatic change we have seen: Emmett and Sam almost completley switch roles and the tension that we saw within the family at the beginning of the book almost completely disappears. Also, all characters seem to come out of the end of the book with a better understanding and more accepting of themselves and the world around them.
ReplyDelete2. I think the ending when Sam gets angry about those girls at the wall is a resolution for Sam as well as a coming of age moment for Sam because she shifts from this character that has a very narrow and romanticized view of war but also has this mindset that she knows better than everyone about war, to someone who accepts the fact that some things she is just not going to know or understand and that's ok because there is no way she could understand because she wasn't there. She sees herself in these naive girls and realizes how little she actually understands. Sam's Odyssey is finding her place in all of this. Throughout the book she can't figure where she stands in all of this about the Vietnam and for a while decides that her place is literally becoming and embodying a Vietnam soldier but then in the end discovers that it's ok that she doesn't understand everything and it's probably best that way too.
3. I feel like this does kind of represent the main message of the book: that you can't force experiences or understanding on yourself, but you have to go through stuff and be comfortable with the idea of not understanding everything in order to have peace. Throughout the entirety of the book, Sam tries to find herself in a place that she has never been and in a time that she wasn't even alive for. "The main thing you learn from history is that you can't learn from history." While trying to find herself in the Vietnam War, she discovers that you can't find yourself in experiences that you never had.
Prompt One: I thought that Mason’s book could definitely be labeled as “The odd one out” of those we’ve read so far. The fact that Mason never served in Vietnam, yet writes so intentionally about it, distances her work from those we’ve read by veterans like Kovic and O’Brien because we know that her perspective can only be as accurate as her speculation. But does this accuracy really matter? It seems to me--what with the first few chapters and their unresolved, present-tense storyline--that the entire novel was trying to build back up to something grand, but by then I had forgotten about the road trip. It was all right, I guess, but my favorite (still) is Tips for a Smooth Transition.
ReplyDeletePrompt Two: “She has kept telling herself that the memorial is only a rock with names on it” (235). But then when they see it, there is all this descriptive and powerful imagery of egrets and stuff… obviously it means a lot more to them than some rock. What I interpret is that seeing her father’s name on a memorial was really important to Sam. Earlier she had felt betrayed by his actions recorded in the diary, but now to see his name celebrated and remembered in such an esteemed manner is enough to give her release of the harsh feeling she felt.
Prompt Three: Emmett is absolutely right here. This idea that one cannot learn from history is entirely what the book is about. Earlier, Sam reminisces about the 60s wishing she could have lived at the same time as her mother, gone to all those Beatles concerts and traded places with those in the past… “The 60s were a lot more fun than now. I was born too late” (234). But if we only look there, to the past, we would be given an incomplete view of the present: Irene has forgotten about the Beatles, and Sam learns that the Vietnam war is nothing like she imagined. In fact, Emmett’s quotation provides the perfect resolution to Sam’s journey because at the end of the day, it was never what anyone had told her about the past, but actually seeing the wall up front and in person that taught her that “she doesn't know either. She is just beginning to understand. And she will never really know what happened to all these men in the war..”
1. Overall, I think that I have mixed feelings about In Country. Simply as book and a story I would say that I did not like it that much, I found some of the characters difficult to relate to and I am not typically drawn to Mason’s style of writing. That being said, however, I do appreciate this book as a piece of literature and art. I find it incredible how Mason is able to create an entire world filled with emotional and complex characters, and how these characters journeys bring to light many difficult questions that the reader is left to grapple with. I think that In Country truly is a testament to what a great work of empathy and fiction can do.
ReplyDelete2. To me, the ending seemed rather anticlimactic, at least in terms of Sam’s character development. I was left feeling rather unsure as to whether or not Sam did end up gaining knowledge about the Vietnam war, but perhaps, as Emmett put it, there was nothing for Sam to learn because she did not undergo the same experience. “‘I came out here to save you, but maybe I can’t. Maybe you have to find out for yourself’” (226). I think that that is the greatest lesson Sam is given; that in some cases, only experience can teach. Though the ending was anticlimactic for Sam, I appreciate how Mason chose to focus the closing lines of the novel on Emmett. Because much of the book focuses on Sam’s journey, Emmett’s struggles are left rather undisclosed, yet at the end it seems as if he is finally able to find some solace and vindication as his face “bursts into a smile like flames.”
3. In many ways, yes, I do believe that this is the message of the novel. However, I do not believe that that is the only, or primary message the book leaves us with. For me, I read this book largely as a coming of age story about a young woman struggling to piece together her identity. Reading the book from this perspective, I think that the greatest realization Sam, or the reader, comes to is the idea that ultimately life does not make sense, and there is no purpose in trying to squeeze together bits and pieces in an effort to create meaning. If one chooses to accept this, they are then free to create their own meaning and find their own identity.
1. This was a weird book. There were so many random digressions and nothing could happen without some incredibly random and somewhat obscure thought from Sam that related in no way to the events around her. The frequent digressions, rather than making me better understand Sam’s character, just took me out of the story and countless times while I read this book I had to stop and say, “Wait, what? What is even going on here? Why was this necessary?” It could be I am not properly analyzing the story and all of those thoughts with minute details encapsulate Sam’s true essence and her rationale for existance. However, even if that may be true, I still really did not appreciate how many there were.
ReplyDelete2. When Sam realizes that she will never be able to understand what really happened in Vietnam because she was not there, I felt proud of her. I was also proud of her when she realizes that she knows just as little as the young person next to her. Sam learns that knowledge rather than leading to all-knowing wisdom simply leads to more questions.
3. I do not think that is the message at all. It could just be that I strongly disagree with the notion that history teaches you nothing, but I also just do not think that is Bobbie Ann Mason’s intended message. If anything it is the opposite. At the memorial, a workman wears a hat with the words, “never again” which I think symbolizes the importance of history. History repeats itself and something as atrocious as the Vietnam war should not be repeated. Sadly, as Kovic argues about Iraq, Vietnam did happen again. Americans were sent to a foreign country without given transparent reasoning. In the case of Iraq, far fewer people died than in Vietnam, but that does not negate the traumas that the veterans faced. What is this book about? That is a great question. I suppose this book is about Vietnam even though it is set in Hopewell, Kentucky. More than Vietnam, though, I think that this book is about a daughter’s journey to learn about her father.
1. When we first started reading this book, I was confused as to how it related to war. I understood that Sam’s father and Emmett were veterans, but it was unclear what point the book would try and make. Throughout the book, I began to enjoy it more. I liked looking into the minds of the veterans and the people surrounding them. The book highlighted, in a similar way to The Deer Hunter, how War affects all the people in these small towns like Hopewell.
ReplyDelete2. I thought that the resolution was interesting. Based on the moments preceding the end of the book, I expected Sam to feel very little when she saw her father’s name on the memorial. Earlier in the book Mason talks about how, “[Dwayne’s] dead and it meant nothing” in explaining Sam’s thinking. This is why it surprised me that Sam “doesn’t understand what she is feeling, but it is something so strong.” I think that this shows that Sam has learned to understand her father and rather than “hate him” like she said before, loves him.
3. Yes, I think that this is close to the message of the book. I think that the intention of Mason was to state that unless you were part of Vietnam, you cannot truly understand it. A conversation between Sam and Emmett earlier in the book explains this idea in a metaphor about watching baseball on TV vs being at the game. In this scene, Sam states “That’s not the same as seeing something for yourself.” I take this line as clear juxtaposition for Sam. I think Mason is commenting on how Sam thinks she can understand Vietnam like the veterans although she was not there, just as Emmett thinks the game is the same at home or on tv. It is sort of like Emmett watching the game at home is Sam reading books about Vietnam, and being at the game is like being a veteran. The experiences may seem the same, but they are very different. That’s what I think Mason is trying to express in both of these scenes. It is one thing to read and learn about Vietnam, but it does not compare to experiencing it in an inexplicable way. Sam slowly learns this as Emmett opens up to her and shows how difficult his experience was and how hard it is to express.
1. I liked the book. It was easy to read, and Sam was a relatable narrator, more than most of the characters in the other books we have read and movies we have watched (mostly because of age and gender). In particular, I found it interesting to read about war from the perspective of someone who has never experienced it. Instead of seeing the effects of war on the soldiers fighting, we get to see how a war can impact a woman’s life years later. I also liked that Mason used lots of specific details of life in Hopewell, like the different music albums, shops, and cars. The references made Hopewell come to life.
ReplyDelete2. I think the ending was the perfect closing scene. I think she finds the connection to her dad for which she has been searching. Touching her dad’s name on the wall provides some answers for her. She knows that his name is just a “scratching on a rock,” but she is so moved by the experience that she begins to cry (244). I think she learns that she will never be able to understand what happened during the war but that she doesn’t need to know everything to feel connected to those who fought in it. Even though she never fought in the war, she is still a part of it because of the ways it has affected her life, which she realizes when she sees her own name on the wall.
3. I think it is a message of the novel. The Vietnam War, arguably the thing that has affected Sam’s life the most, cannot be completely understood by people like Sam who did not experience it. If they cannot understand it, how can they learn from it? I think she realizes at the wall that while she cannot ever fully understand history, she can learn from the ways it has affected her life. This emphasizes the idea of looking forwards, rather than looking backwards. Sam must learn to form her own identity, rather than focusing on finding out the identities of others.
I enjoyed it quite a bit. From a craft perspective, the prose was quite beautiful. I especially liked the last line of the book, with the “smile like flames”. It was very readable, with Sam reading as very authentically young, and the symbolism and imagery was frequently fresh, but not intrusive. Nothing felt overdone. It felt everyday in the best way, and very real. When reading Born on the Fourth of July, while it was clearly a war story with the attendant ambiguity and such, it always felt like Kovic was making a very particular point. It would be too strong to call it didactic, but it certainly felt like it had fewer layers than this novel. Part of this probably results from a greater distance from the war in this narrative, both in terms of the situations and characters, but the author as well. It’s not as straightforwardly about Vietnam, even if it is a war story in its own right. Part of it is probably also my own bias; being a teenager and a civilian, it’s a lot more comprehensible to me than war will probably ever be.
ReplyDelete2. What was your reaction to the resolution? If Sam's trip is an odyssey of sorts, what did she learn from it, and particularly her moment at the wall?
I liked the resolution. It was satisfyingly conclusive enough for me emotionally, since I have a weakness for tidy endings, while still being complex enough to feel real. Sam finds a genuine sense of closure in regards to her father, which is all the more poignant considering that she knows he is not the perfect being she once believed he was. What Sam learns has a lot to do with the quote in question 3. From reflecting on the past with her mother to a sudden realization of her own mortality, Sam is disillusioned, and also a bit more mature. However, even as Sam realizes how much she doesn’t know and can never know what the veterans have gone through, she also sees that she does have ownership of a piece of the narrative on Vietnam. After all, she finds her name on the wall as well: “She touches her own name. How odd it feels, as though all the names in America have been used to decorate this wall.” Her war story is the one told here: a missing father, a veteran uncle, and her ultimately futile attempt to find answers that make sense. It’s not only about Sam, either. We get to see the reactions of all sorts of people visiting the Vietnam Memorial, from schoolkids to veterans. There’s a sense of a tapestry of stories existing. All the names of America being on that wall speaks to the widespread impact of Vietnam. It is an indelible part of the American landscape.
3. "'Fuck. You can't learn from the past. The main thing you learn from history is that you can't learn from history,'" Emmett says (226). Is this the message of the novel? If yes, what does this mean—how does this act as a resolution for Sam's journey through the book? If not, what then is the message of the book—what is it about?
I think it’s definitely part of it, but it’s also not the whole message. Certainly, Sam’s had to let go of her romanticization of history. She can’t learn only from history or rely on it, but she also does have to come to terms with the impact Vietnam has on her life and on the country. If she didn’t she’d be like Lonnie and Dawn and we’d probably think she was shallower than she already is. In that way, she does learn from the past. She has to, in order to then come to a truly considered realization that she can’t draw any neat conclusions from history. (Actually, I guess that quote can be interpreted as including that point too, now that I’m looking back on it.)
1. So what did you think of the book?
ReplyDeleteWhen I think about this book, a surge of emotions come to mind to the point where it is hard to manifest into words. However, throughout this book, it has given me a sense of awe and respect for author Bobbie Ann Mason. I feel that when reading, it is evident how carefully she writes every word. Every sentence is an allusion to other events, a symbol for the lasting effects of war, and the book is a physical manifestation of O’Brians opinion that “a true war story does not have to have actually happened for it to be true.” Sam is depicted very heavily and emotionally complex, in a way that in many cases, reflects all of us to some extent. Although we all may not be as connected to war as Sam, many of the same feelings of realization, ignorance, and frustration is relatable. The book itself gives us a new perspective of war through the eyes of families whose loved ones have served, and how that action has created a riveting gap between the relationships between people and finding their own identity through war.
2. What was your reaction to the resolution? If Sam's trip is an odyssey of sorts, what did she learn from it, and particularly her moment at the wall?
In my opinion, the last chapter is the only way I would have imagined it to end. It just makes perfect sense in a writer's standpoint to bring the book full circle to tie the beginning time era. Many places towards the end, I felt almost satisfied with what I was reading. Many of the topics and emotions we felt during our discussions earlier on were finally also addressed towards the end, somehow giving the book itself a good conclusion. For example, Emmett finally spells out why he has an obsession with birds : it distracted him about the atrocities of war and everything in his surroundings. In terms of the trip itself, I think the trip was a turning point, a realization for Sam that she can’t know what it is like to be in Vietnam and will never be able to know. “But she realizes that she doesn’t know either. She is just beginning to understand. And she will never really know what happened to all these men in the war” (240). This experience is a moment in which she matures as a character, where she realizes that she can’t realizes that her curiosity will never be quenched and her that she will have to find a new path in connecting with her father.
3. "'Fuck. You can't learn from the past. The main thing you learn from history is that you can't learn from history,'" Emmett says (226). Is this the message of the novel? If yes, what does this mean—how does this act as a resolution for Sam's journey through the book? If not, what then is the message of the book—what is it about?
I agree that this quote is a fundamental part of the novel. A huge theme is that one cannot reenact history, at least, never 100 percent accurately. Much like how Sam will never know what it feels like during the war, we can never know what it felt like 100 years ago or 50 years ago, because we were not even there to experience the history in it of itself. This quotes hugely ties into war and everything that it effects. It showcases the complexities about everything. I think another role in how history teaches you that you can’t learn from history is that there is a certain part of history that you will never be able to understand. You will never be able to completely understand the lives of other people, the atrocities of war, the interactions of warfare, the environment of war itself, and most importantly, the emotions and ideals of the people in war.
1) I think I learned a lot about the different ways Vietnam affected people. Sam’s story was very different from Kovic’s, in the sense that she didn’t know what Vietnam was like. In a way, Kovic was trying to run away from Vietnam the war , and Sam was running towards it. I think maybe at times I have been a little quick to judge Sam. I think, overall, she did what any teenager would do in that situation (which, to be fair, is just “be annoying, naive and make a lot of mistakes”). I think there’s a lot of beauty in Sam’s character being imperfect. She messes up (a lot), and she learns from it. I think the story would have been a lot less realistic, relatable or something the audience could learn from. I know I learned a lot about this book because of Sam’s often questionable decision making. This was the first book that so constantly begged the question of “what would I do in this situation?”. Sometimes my answer was very different from what Sam did. Sometimes it was so spot-on identical it terrified me. This book made me think about Vietnam in first-person.
ReplyDelete2) I really liked the fact that Mamaw came with them to the memorial. I think you could tell just how much she needed to see her son’s name when she finally got the chance to. When Sam visited her a few chapters earlier, Mamaw had seemed so happy, so positive about her son’s death that it almost felt like it had never happened. But as soon as she reached the memorial, you could tell just how much the loss of her son had affected her, and still affected her to that day. I like that Emmett was finally able to see the names of the people he had known. I’m sure the memorial brought a lot of answers, just in terms of who’s deaths he hadn’t known about for sure. I can’t imagine what kind of inner turmoil must come with not knowing if the people closest to you had survived, even fifteen years after the war. I feel like for years, Emmett ran from Vietnam and the war, and for good reason. But this scene seemed like it brought him much needed closure, hopefully to catalyze a more successful healing process.
3) I think a huge theme of In Country is ambiguity. Try as she might, Sam cannot rationalize the war. She can’t make it black and white. Vietnam is stuck in a permanent gray area, and I think Sam begins accepts that towards the end of the book. I think this theme lies parallel to Emmett’s quote. Through an often painful series of trial and error, Sam learns that she really can’t learn from the history of the war. She can ask all the questions she can come up with, harass as many veterans as she can find and watch every war film ever made: she will never understand Vietnam. And that’s okay. The Vietnam war wasn’t a lesson to be learned, it was a war. It didn’t make sense. It was horrifying and beautiful and had gross banana leaf smells and nauseating foot funguses. The only thing it didn’t have was a moral.